The Unknown Worlds Website has news that Natural Selection 2 will boast an additional map that's not part of the beta when the action/strategy sequel launches next week on Halloween. If that makes it sound like this map is a rush job, nothing could be farther from the truth, as they explain it "has been under construction for over two years." They offer some screenshots of the map, and detail all they had to change over the course of that time to get it into a state they are happy with. Thanks Joao.

mock me all you want. Lack of "combat" mode put me off NS2. If it ever gets modded in then i'll buy it. Finding a game with a reasonable commander was very hard in NS1 - even in its heyday. Trying to play commander to get better was even harder as if you werent in the clique you were voted out pretty quickly. Luckily I was pretty well entrenched in the old 187 combat servers so I had some epic games.

Result was to play the aliens and it only took a few people to take save and take onos instead of hiving and you were doomed again. At least combat was "fun" if not in the spirit of the game.

Its not the cough that carries you off but the coffin they carry you off in.

TF2 went to shit when the bots and mods showed up. If you weren't playing on an official Valve server, you had no way of knowing if you were playing with actual human beings or what custom rules the server was running. NS2 won't have official Valve servers so I fully expect it to become a wasteland of stealth mods and bots soon after launch.

Establishing a strong community as quickly as possible is essential for multiplayer games and the $25 price tag is already a significant barrier for most consumers, especially with all the F2P competition.

Strong != large.

Most people would argue otherwise. Enjoying a multiplayer game requires the ability to consistently find other people to play with. The more people playing, the easier it is to find people to play with. Not only that, but the more people playing, the broader the range of skill levels. Small but passionate communities tend to consist of exclusively high-level players, making the game impenetrable to newbies. NS2 already has a high-level player base that has been playing the game for over a year. If the game launches and this is still the primary player base, matches are going to be incredibly one-sided and new players will likely stop playing.

Establishing a strong community as quickly as possible is essential for multiplayer games and the $25 price tag is already a significant barrier for most consumers, especially with all the F2P competition.

I'm thinking they should have a free weekend at launch and offer the game at a discount. Establishing a strong community as quickly as possible is essential for multiplayer games and the $25 price tag is already a significant barrier for most consumers, especially with all the F2P competition.

It seems like it has a lot of potential but performance is a little poor, in part because it doesn't support SLI. The graphics are pretty good - here are a couple of screenshots I took earlier: one; two. It's certainly improved a lot from when I first played the alpha a couple of years ago.

Fun game. Even if you don't quite understand what's going on all the time, you can still help your team out by following people and listening to the commander. Two sides are distinctive. Definitely looking forward to release day.

I really want the NS team to succeed, they really put their all into this project and NS2 has come together so nicely since the early beta releases. Can't wait to see their release trailer!!! The Exo Suit Trailer is awesome!